Sabbath

Exodus 20
8 “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
A Pastor and a Rabbi were going out for coffee one week. and the Pastor- she was talking about their calls and their work. And the Pastor is going on and on about how excited and on fire they are for the Lord- and how they can’t help but work everyday because they’re so committed to G-d, and because Satan- “Well that Satan doesn’t take a day off.” And her Rabbi friend took a sip of their coffee, and put it down and said, “maybe, maybe your need a better role model.”
We all know the 10 Commandments, but not keeping the Sabbath is a commandment that we as a culture brag about breaking. I recently was blessed with a month-long sabbatical. Our Church has wonderful policy that for every 7 years as Pastor, you get a month-long sabbatical. I had a wonderful time visiting Zephyr Point at Lake Tahoe, reading Psalms along side a river in Yosemite. And I had everything planned, every day a new adventure. But I need to confess there were two days where I just dropped my kids off at the babysitter and went home and slept. I didn’t realize how rundown and exhausted I had become. I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t really taking Sabbath time, all in the name of Jesus, or my small kids or yardwork. Surely G-d wouldn’t mind if I didn’t take Sabbath- as Pastor there is always more to do.
But the truth is we need this rest in order to thrive and live into the calls G-d puts on our lives. as I spent this last month resting and in G-d’s creation and studying G-d’s word I realized how much I ached for this sabbath time. And not just my soul, but my whole body literally was aching for quiet and restful time with G-d. “Juan- Carlos Lerman, a researcher at the University of Arizona, examined the relationship between our physical work and rest.
What Lerman’s scientific research demonstrated was that the average human being needs one day of rest per seven days to function properly. Lerman’s research is summarized by Marva Dawn: “According to Lerman’s theory, failing to rest after six days of steady work will lead to insomnia or sleepiness, hormonal imbalances, fatigue, irritability, organ stress, and other increasingly serious physical and mental symptoms.
What we have here is a fascinating harmony between the biblical and scientific witness. This research illuminates a seemingly direct relationship between human well-being and the need for physical rest. In fact, when a person does not rest properly, their blood pressure will escalate to unhealthy levels…We are finite, limited people.” Subversive Sabbath by A.J. Swoboda. And my soul and body has borne witness to it. My mom came up for my surgery this week to watch my kids, so Zach could be with me at the hospital and she kept saying to me, how she could see a change in me. That because of my sabbatical I was so much more relaxed, I was smiling more and laughing more. And so I want to express gratitude that our church has this policy for it’s Pastors.
And I bet there are a lot of people here in this room who also need a sabbatical. We live in a world that is 24/7. A country where many people go to work sick or are afraid to use their vacation because their co-workers aren’t.
It’s interesting to me that in the 10 Commandments, G-d makes a point to remind people that they are the G-d who freed them from slavery. And this actually relates directly to the importance of sabbath. Because back in Egypt, there was no sabbath. The Egyptian gods, the pharos, the slaves…all of them worked 7 days a week. They were a society of production. They were slaves to productions. And to be honest, we in America have decided to return to that relationship. In America one of the first things, we ask a person at a party is what they do, what job they have, what they do for a living. This isn’t common is other parts of the world. This isn’t common in most of Europe or South America. But here in America we are so focused on work and what we can produce. But G-d doesn’t buy into all that, that’s our issue, not His.
Americans struggle to understand and keep the sabbath, because the sabbath forces us to admit that the world goes on without us. That we are finite beings. And as much as we struggle with that (because it forces us to admit that we aren’t as important as we think we are) it’s actually a blessing. It allows us to acknowledge that we can’t fix everything. That we are dependent on G-d. It requires trust in G-d to admit our dependence on G-d. To be honest, I’ve never been great at that. Trusting…and we could talk about my life and the psychology of that and why I feel that way…but it just comes down to the fact that trust is hard. But I went on Sabbatical…and you are all here, and doing well…and that has been a real eye opener for me. And so I am praying and hoping that I can share that terrifying and incredible gift with you. You can take a break and the world can keep on spinning. And G-d will take care of people on the day that you turn off your phone, on the day that you nap, on the day that you dream, on the day that you go boating and let the wind knot up your hair. And that’s hard and sacred and beautiful.
And not only will the world go on, when we step back into it, we will be more prepared and equipped to take on the tasks that come our way. And I learned that my belief that I needed to be working or responding to every text or phone calls every day a week- at all hours- helped me recognize my arrogance. You know what the first thing that G-d marks as holy in the entire Bible? It’s the first sabbath in Genesis. G-d creates the heavens and earth, the seas and the skies, every animal of ocean, land and air, and even humanity, but the first thing that G-d names as Holy is the day of rest. The sabbath.
A.J. Swoboda reminds us, “As Dietrich Bonhoffer once wrote, with G-d, an imperative is an indicative. That is, what G-d commands us to do tells us something of who G-d is. G-d invites us to rest. And G-d rests, Are we stronger or wiser or better than G-d?….Even scientific communities increasingly grasp these realities. In 1974, nearly halfway through the eighty-four-day mission aboard the Skylab space station, Colonel William Pogue requested a day of rest from mission control for his overworked and exhausted space crew:
“We have been over-scheduled. We were just hustling the whole day. The work could be tiresome and tedious, though the view is spectacular. How spectacular the view and work must have been, but even a breathtaking view from space cannot relieve the human need for rest. What happened? NASA refused his request. Subsequently, the crew went on strike in space, a first of its kind. Disobeying orders, the crew took a space Sabbath. In response, ground control was forced to change their policy. To this day, NASA now schedules tome for rest on all space travel. Even NASA factors in rest.” Subversive Sabbath
G-d has given us the 10 Commandments and most of them we follow. But when it comes to taking Sabbath, we often brag about not doing it. Beloved friends, G-d has called us to rest. Let us rest, let us be still and know G-d.
But sabbath forces us to admit that the world goes on without us. That we are finite beings. And as much as we struggle with that (because it forces us to admit that we aren’t as important as we think we are) it’s actually a blessing. It allows us to acknowledge that we can’t fix everything. That we are dependent on G-d. It requires trust in G-d to admit our dependence on G-d. To be honest, I’ve never been great at that. Trusting…
But my sabbatical reminded me that I can take a break and the world can keep on spinning. The Church keeps going. And G-d will take care of people on the day that you turn off your phone, on the day that you nap, on the day that you dream, on the day that you go boating and let the wind knot up your hair. And that’s hard and sacred and beautiful.
And not only will the world go on, when we step back into it, we will be more prepared and equipped to take on the tasks that come our way. And I learned that my belief that I needed to be working or responding to every text or phone calls every day a week- at all hours- helped me recognize my arrogance. You know what the first thing that G-d marks as holy in the entire Bible? It’s the first sabbath in Genesis. G-d creates the heavens and earth, the seas and the skies, every animal of ocean, land and air, and even humanity, but the first thing that G-d names as Holy is the day of rest. The sabbath.
And when we embody this, we give others permission to rest as well. And one of the things I love about this commandment is that this is clearly a justice issue. That we have to work to ensure that people can rest, that people are making a livable wage so that they can rest.
Maybe honoring the Sabbath is just a problem. And so I ask you to learn from mistakes. Let us make time for rest, and Elders please help hold your Pastor accountable. Make sure we are following all of G-d’s Commandments. Sometimes we need reminders. Help us protect that space for rest. I can’t even began to explain how thankful that my Elders implemented this policy at our Church years ago.
At home I have a great shirt that says, “Jesus took Naps, because like Jesus.” Amen